Freewill doesn't undo fate, destiny, the future. Freewill is about the choices you have and not the choices beyond your control. We can only decide to do whatever cards we have in our hands. But life has cards as well.
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I think what @leaky is saying is that even those choices you think you have, the final selection, the final decision made is somehow still influenced by certain determinants
Right, and I disagree with that. I believe that there is some influence but that the ultimate responsibility and the actual choice is made by the individual at least to some extent or that the potential is there to make choices regardless of the influences and everything. I believe that we all can break bad habits and addictions and lifestyles regardless of the nature versus nurture debates and the environments we may be in and everything.
those final choices you are talking about can't be considered exclusive of previous influences. When an individual faces options, the choice he makes has to be somehow influenced by an occurrence of the past, or a specific knowledge or some other influence he/she has come across at some given point in time. So in essence freewill is more like influenced will that looks like freewill just simply because it is not being directly imposed on the individual. If we consider all indirect, passive influences, we'd realise that all will is influence at some level in various ways. If an individual Can be said to be a sum total of his influences like environment, knowledge base, etc and all that contributes in shaping his psyche how then can we say his choices could be void of influences? I think not
@babysteve you have a good grasp on the idea of determinism. Very well said.
You both raise some good points though. I've posted part II of this article, if you are interested. I would like to hear more of your thoughts on the subject :)
I also believe that 'Fate' and the future are truly dynamic eventualities and they are informed by choices. Say, there's an infinite range of possibilities and each choice or decision stirs the eventual 'fate' towards a Particular possibility of the set. My thought is still a derivative of the theory of causality. I don't think there is a 'future' or 'fate' cast in stone.
I believe that you can foretell and predict future choices. That is what the future is. The future can be set in stone in the sense that what will happen will happen. But the choices people make tomorrow are still choices they will make tomorrow. If you know what they will do, that does not violate or destroy their freewill, their choices. If I tell you that I will kill you tomorrow, that does not destroy your freewill to try to not die tomorrow. Whether or not I'm able to kill you tomorrow or not is another matter all together. But knowing the future does not mean you lose your choices. You can know that you will sleep tomorrow but that doesn't mean you won't choose when to go to bed tomorrow, unless if you fall asleep accidentally or something. Fate may be real. Destiny may be out there. Is the future cast in stone? I think it is but that does not mean we will know what will happen in the future. But that does not mean we cannot know or that nobody knows what will happen.
I enjoyed reading the conversations that you both had.@joeyarnoldvn regarding what you said about sleep - determinism would suggest that you do not have free will over the choice of when to go to sleep but rather, that other states and events will determine your choice. For instance, you getting tired or lacking energy is the causal event that leads you to decide when to go to sleep. Therefore, your choice of when to go to sleep is determined. Just something to ponder :)
When we sleep can be predictive. What we eat and what we do predicts or determines when we sleep, possibly. Normal people can go to sleep when they feel tired. For me, I have went to bed when I felt tired. At other times, I did not go to bed even when I was very tired. There were times when I was not tired and I was still sleeping. There are times I try to sleep. There are times I choose to sleep and not sleep. People are predictable. But that doesn't mean they don't have choice. It just means they fail to choose or that their choices are predictable.
I do not believe in absolute determinism. I believe that your choices are your choices. If I kill you, then you don't have the choice to sleep or not to sleep. In other words, sleeping would no longer be one of your choices if you are dead. That is a clear example of what I believe. You can only do what you can do. And there are some choices others make. There are things that happens that may take from the possible and potential choices we may want to or could have made later on in life but can't if those choices are no longer there. If we had a time machine, we could see what will happen in the future, but knowing the future may not destroy the future from happening through at least some bit of freewill, as in choices, decisions, via people, the universe, and everything.
Some things are beyond our control, perhaps. What others does may affect us, too. So, if I give you sleeping pills, then you will probably go to sleep soon. I would be able to determine when you sleep. Fire can kill you. In other words, the fire may determine your death, perhaps, or maybe to an extent it may seem. So, in life, it may seem that everything or that some things are determined by not me, not you, not by individuals, but by maybe other people, maybe God, maybe Buddha, maybe Allah, maybe Zeus, maybe Ra, maybe the universe, maybe Mother Earth, and everything, or whatever. But I would say that we still have some choices.
We may not have all of the choices and we may not be able to do anything, maybe, but we can probably do much more than we may think, regardless of whether what we do is predictive or not. I believed that what happens is determined by us and by not us.